35 miles

e-208 @ a good price. Just people need to be aware even though the improved battery capacity still only 48.1 kW usable (previously 46.3) and the 7.6 kW AC max charge speed not 11 kW. Maybe not an issue for many. Stellantis issue still as far as suspension, drop links and crap brake components.

@lol-lol it really is amazing just much more efficiency you can get if you stick close enough to a lorry.

Do not stick close to a lorry though, in the eddy, back far enough to see both sides mirrors. A tall enough one to be where the power meter in the car can drop right down. Where if raining you still do not need wipers on. Just maybe do not do it in Scotland where it might be a high value load in the dark. (Alcohol.) they might just call the police thinking they are being followed for a highjacking. When you are just trying to get home without a charging stop. Happened twice to me on the A96 and A90, Aberdeenshire late night time. PS, Megabus and Citylink Coaches and Ember EV ones are good enough on the 70 mph Average Speed Camera routes to tail. Quite an energy saver getting behind one of those. On the West Coast McBurney HGV,s through 60 mph Average speed camera stretches. Amazing how the Posted Passenger car speed limits and irrelevant to the speeds they can carry.

Edited 18 April18 Apr by Evolution13

12 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

@lol-lol it really is amazing just much more efficiency you can get if you stick close enough to a lorry.

Just okd enough to remember the introduction of the 55 mph speed limit in the US in the 70s to preserve ftek stocks.

Amazing that vehicles generally fave not improved that much that a new 55 mph limit is being discussed for this oil crisis.

Some get it wrong that aero drag is a square ratio of drag to speed when it is in fact a cube ratio.

Tyre hysterysis / drag is a square ratio.

But travelling at 55 makes as much as a 20% to as much as 50% difference in some vehicles. Plus the aero assistance of a bit of drafting but just don't like to get too close, something like 20 -25m I think hs close enough.

40 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

But travelling at 55 makes as much as a 20% to as much as 50% difference in some vehicles. Plus the aero assistance of a bit of drafting but just don't like to get too close, something like 20 -25m I think hs close enough.

That is where adaptive cruise control comes into its own; set it correctly and then monitor it closely, just in case it has a glitch and malfunctions.

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

That is where adaptive cruise control comes into its own; set it correctly and then monitor it closely, just in case it has a glitch and malfunctions.

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

That is where adaptive cruise control comes into its own; set it correctly and then monitor it closely, just in case it has a glitch and malfunctions.

Indeed, just getting use to it as Scenic is first car I have had with it.

Thought I would do a trip / power measure reset on the R5 journey with low battery and the energy consumption report leapt up to 9 miles per KWh. Thought that was on the high side of what was really possible and it did settle down to about 6.5 which I was still pleased with.

Maybe there should ve consistency with battery reserve size. ICE cars sem to have about 1.5 gallons ie 7 litres which should take one about 60 miles. EV may or may not go a mile, ten, thirty miles beyond zero SoC and thank Byorn Nyland for doing hundred or probably thousands of hours of testing to show us EV users what to expect.

Edited 18 April18 Apr by lol-lol

Reserve can not be anymore predictable in a BEV than it is in an ICE. If you are going to drive hard when the ICE reserve light comes on and shows 60 miles it might just go 30 miles. Car dependent. An EV is going to keep on doing the miles per kW/h if you continue as you were when it is down to 10 or 5 percent. That 10 or 5 percent in colder weather or windy / wet etc is not the same as in the warmer weather and dry roads where conditions are giving better efficiency. Once you have a car it is simple enough to learn what ever it,s characteristics is. Just because someone in Norway gets whatever does not mean on UK roads a similar model will be the same. As to the running to 0% crap, just a total nonsense even if you have an EMERGENCY BATTERY POWER PACK with you,

55 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Reserve can not be anymore predictable in a BEV than it is in an ICE. If you are going to drive hard when the ICE reserve light comes on and shows 60 miles it might just go 30 miles. Car dependent. An EV is going to keep on doing the miles per kW/h if you continue as you were when it is down to 10 or 5 percent. That 10 or 5 percent in colder weather or windy / wet etc is not the same as in the warmer weather and dry roads where conditions are giving better efficiency. Once you have a car it is simple enough to learn what ever it,s characteristics is. Just because someone in Norway gets whatever does not mean on UK roads a similar model will be the same. As to the running to 0% crap, just a total nonsense even if you have an EMERGENCY BATTERY POWER PACK with you,

Why crap if you know you can make that extra ten or twenty miles past 0% in a Renault, Nissan or TESLA and said yourself a whole heap of time and cost and get home earlier ??

As I said I would and could not do it in our Mini Cooper and don't think it would allow it but some marques do and hence another reason I am a Renault, Nissan, Dacia fan. Will look at the Mitsubishi Eclipse when arrives which seems to be from the Ariya / Scenic parts bin but presumably be 4 wheel drive and have yge same sub 0% ghat other Alliance cars do. It's there, use it to save money and time !

Edited 18 April18 Apr by lol-lol

Simples. Have you not met any BEV drivers being towed into Charging hubs because they believed something they were told, or they get an escort after having had a boost to get them to the chargers. This because they read or watched on how far past Zero you can go? It happens regularly on the A90 and they arrive to get a charge in Forfar.

10 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Simples. Have you not met any BEV drivers being towed into Charging hubs because they believed something they were told, or they get an escort after having had a boost to get them to the chargers. This because they read or watched on how far past Zero you can go? It happens regularly on the A90 and they arrive to get a charge in Forfar.

Not in the Midlands area, I always gave a look who has stopped by the side of the road and it is virtually never an EV and therefore neatly always an ICE vehicle.

I am looking at when the new Royal Enfield Flying Flea EV bike is coming to the UK and I can imagine those running out of juice.

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

Why crap if you know you can make that extra ten or twenty miles past 0% in a Renault, Nissan or TESLA and said yourself a whole heap of time and cost and get home earlier ??

As I said I would and could not do it in our Mini Cooper and don't think it would allow it but some marques do and hence another reason I am a Renault, Nissan, Dacia fan. Will look at the Mitsubishi Eclipse when arrives which seems to be from the Ariya / Scenic parts bin but presumably be 4 wheel drive and have yge same sub 0% ghat other Alliance cars do. It's there, use it to save money and time !

All the experts that I have come across all seem to agree that you get optimum battery performance if you stick between the limits of approx. 20% and 80%, meaning that the range is already effectively reduced to just 60% of whatever fanciful claims they were making in the brochure. That translates into the need to plan at least one charging stop on longish trips, each way, thus adding to both cost and time taken to do the trip, and that is without the extra time required to maximise the range by attempting to sit in the slipstream of buses or trucks at speeds in the 50 to 55 mph range.

Allowing a battery to get ultra low can considerably shorten its life expectancy, and the same is equally true if allowing it to charge above an 80% SOC level. Now if you're the driver of a company car and you know that you're going to be getting another new replacement car at the 3 year period, then all the above means bugger all to you as it is never going to come back to bite your arse; it becomes someone else's problem when the battery fails, needing £thousands to replace it with a new one. Even my brand new mobile phone has an upper limit built in of 80% SOC and switches off the charging once this level is reached. When battery gets into the lower regions of below 20%, it goes into low power mode and starts to shut down some services to conserve the battery. Indeed my also brand new laptop also has the same battery management control built in, and it will not go above the 80% level, regardless of how long I leave it on charge, and it also shuts down featured when it gets below 20% level.

So I would say that by allowing your car to get to that level, you are actually playing with fire which could potentially hit you extremely hard in the trouser pocket department one day.

It is also reasonably true of ICE cars by the way, once the low fuel warning light comes on, it is best to refuel ASAP, regardless of the cost as allowing the tank to get really low, also allows the sediment that slowly accumulates in the tank, to get sucked into the engine, where it could cause serious problems. Incidentally, there is zero issue with brimming your fuel tank on an ICE vehicle.

^^^Experts? Who are these experts? Industry experts or Vloggers, running really low is not good or storing with really low charge, BUT So much other Total crap, 30 or 40 even 50 kW battery and you need down to 10% or lower and get charging quick * if you need to 90 or 100 % then you charge to that. Even the slowing down too much above 80% and taking too long can be a nonsense. My small battery car can still be taking in 20 Kw at above 95%. PS, what sediment in ICE vehicle fuel tanks in 2026 in the UK? Filters in filling station tanks to outlets, in the pump and in the vehicles fuel tank. Are we talking old tanks with corrosion in them? As far as EV Experts, an actuall EV Technician doing high annual mikes knows quite a bit more than some random Influencer / Vlogger repeating what they hear or read from others. James & Kate.

Edited 18 April18 Apr by Evolution13

25 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

All the experts that I have come across all seem to agree that you get optimum battery performance if you stick between the limits of approx. 20% and 80%, meaning that the range is already effectively reduced to just 60% of whatever fanciful claims they were making in the brochure. That translates into the need to plan at least one charging stop on longish trips, each way, thus adding to both cost and time taken to do the trip, and that is without the extra time required to maximise the range by attempting to sit in the slipstream of buses or trucks at speeds in the 50 to 55 mph range.

Allowing a battery to get ultra low can considerably shorten its life expectancy, and the same is equally true if allowing it to charge above an 80% SOC level. Now if you're the driver of a company car and you know that you're going to be getting another new replacement car at the 3 year period, then all the above means bugger all to you as it is never going to come back to bite your arse; it becomes someone else's problem when the battery fails, needing £thousands to replace it with a new one. Even my brand new mobile phone has an upper limit built in of 80% SOC and switches off the charging once this level is reached. When battery gets into the lower regions of below 20%, it goes into low power mode and starts to shut down some services to conserve the battery. Indeed my also brand new laptop also has the same battery management control built in, and it will not go above the 80% level, regardless of how long I leave it on charge, and it also shuts down featured when it gets below 20% level.

So I would say that by allowing your car to get to that level, you are actually playing with fire which could potentially hit you extremely hard in the trouser pocket department one day.

It is also reasonably true of ICE cars by the way, once the low fuel warning light comes on, it is best to refuel ASAP, regardless of the cost as allowing the tank to get really low, also allows the sediment that slowly accumulates in the tank, to get sucked into the engine, where it could cause serious problems. Incidentally, there is zero issue with brimming your fuel tank on an ICE vehicle.

The State of Charge car display is not the actual state of charge of the battery but a level that the car manufacturer wants to tell you.

True levels can be seen in Apps tapping in to the OBD port, Carscanner being a notable one.

The car's Battery Management System is a better indicator than car's SoC % i reckon. So with my Scenic not even mentioning reduced performance to 11 miles past 0% SoC being shown is a better indicator and such messages are there to ensure the car is not damaged and results jn warranty claims.

I might get my own battery report on the 5 and Scenic just before potential hand back and that will influence my decesion whether to keep either of the cars.

I don't expect the rare occasional charging to 85,90,95 ir 100 % if running it down to 15,10,5 or 0% to have hurt the battery pack. More important not to leave the battery very highly charged or very low for days on end rather than dipping down or charging up high. Occasional full charge needed to carry out battery cell balancing operation.

Edited 18 April18 Apr by lol-lol

Forget all about EV people like James and Kate, and the other EV bloggers etc, I'm talking about the battery designers and specialists in battery technology, not people with vested interests in just EVs. Is my mobile phone, or my laptop, also an EV? No, but what they all have in common are batteries.

Well they build the cars and batteries & tech, and software and some is total crap. Lets say VW Group, and sell them and as it is some are really inefficient. I treat my E-bike batteries very different from EV batteries. Places to go, people to see and even though all the time in the world life is to short for Supposed Experts & engineers or designers who might run Big Battery EV,s or maybe no EV. There are some Real World Drivers doing high miles, charging as fast or as full as they can and these are the ones that are worth looking at for experience. As to failures well lets think you have had disasters other than TESLA, that will be Porsche & Jaguar high up the list.

Edited 18 April18 Apr by Evolution13

1 hour ago, Evolution13 said:

^^^Experts? Who are these experts? Industry experts or Vloggers, running really low is not good or storing with really low charge, BUT So much other Total crap, 30 or 40 even 50 kW battery and you need down to 10% or lower and get charging quick * if you need to 90 or 100 % then you charge to that. Even the slowing down too much above 80% and taking too long can be a nonsense. My small battery car can still be taking in 20 Kw at above 95%. PS, what sediment in ICE vehicle fuel tanks in 2026 in the UK? Filters in filling station tanks to outlets, in the pump and in the vehicles fuel tank. Are we talking old tanks with corrosion in them? As far as EV Experts, an actuall EV Technician doing high annual mikes knows quite a bit more than some random Influencer / Vlogger repeating what they hear or read from others. James & Kate.

Interestingly when I started work a LONG time ago at Dowty in Cheltenham I was put up in a B&B at John and Betty Cleeveley's house... John being the founder of Cleevely Motors and who's sons took over the business and subsequently also started Cleeveley EV's.

1 hour ago, Evolution13 said:

Well they build the cars and batteries & tech, and software and some is total crap. Lets say VW Group, and sell them and as it is some are really inefficient. I treat my E-bike batteries very different from EV batteries. Places to go, people to see and even though all the time in the world life is to short for Supposed Experts & engineers or designers who might run Big Battery EV,s or maybe no EV. There are some Real World Drivers doing high miles, charging as fast or as full as they can and these are the ones that are worth looking at for experience. As to failures well lets think you have had disasters other than TESLA, that will be Porsche & Jaguar high up the list.

Interesting, but I was not talking about car makers; I was referring to the scientists involved in the study of batteries of all types, the ones who come up with ideas and breakthroughs in technology, in the same way as it is scientists who come up with new medicines and vaccines and not the medical practitioners, ie, the doctors (doctors = car manufacturers).

Why do you treat your E-bike batteries differently to your EV car batteries? Are they not the same technology but in a different package? Is cola in a tin any different to cola in a bottle? The principles extend to all batteries with the same kind of chemistry.

I have a video doorbell that uses 2 x 18650 cells which are also used in lots of EVs, and I know from experience that unless I keep a strict eye on those 18650 cells and they get depleted, they take ages to take another charge and will then begin failing altogether soon after. I have had to purchase a few of these cells from Amazon now to replace ones that have been allowed to get too low.

5 e-bike batteries kept cozy in the house and charged at 75-80%. They have not been used for over 2 years sadly.

Good job they were stored charged then 👍

This battery tech I talk about is NOT specifically aimed at electric cars, but they are now becoming the largest single user for batteries of this type and energy density. For those who would like to know a little more about the ongoing battery tech research that I mentioned, which is NOT being done by governments or car manufacturers and not even by lithium battery manufacturers, be they for BEVs, torches, E-bikes, vapes, laptops, etc. I attach one such link below. These studies are being done by scientific establishments across the globe, universities and the like, and they present problems for all types of lithium batteries, even solid-state ones, so we are not out of the woods and safe yet.

This demonstrates the dangers of governments taking notice of think tanks, lobby groups etc, all of which have that "vested interest" in securing a particular outcome, all in the pursuit of wealth.

The lithium dendrites are very similar to the tin whiskers that grow inside germanium transistors, which cause short circuits and kill old radios and electronics dead. I have repaired many old radios over the years that had fallen foul of these whiskers and been thrown away as scrap. This article from NASA explains and gives some very good photographic proof that these things exist.

Tin Whiskers Growing Inside ~45 Year Old AF114 Transistors

Lithium dendrites act like needles, not soft metal, study finds

Here is some genuinely interesting tech which, if the claim holds true, could revolutionise the entire electric car movement and argument forward, with possibly far greater safety built in.

Wireless EV charging reaches 95% efficiency, powers grids on the move

While this is not an electric car, but a bus, I thought that it was very interesting nonetheless. It is a very iconic ex London Transport Routemaster.

A shocking email from Octopus a couple of hours ago.

Night time rate ie when the EVs get charged up, was to rise to even more than it was before the government's 3.51 p per kwh was shaved off all tariffs on April 1st.

Night time rate up to 8.6 p per KWh and Day time up to almost 30p per KWh.

Stuff that. So only 30 days of really cheap night time charging before it all goes.

Of course it is the Middle East war hiking gas prices that has done it.

So got on to Octopus website and switched over to Octopus Agile with Dynamic pricing which follows the live cost of lecky.

From 1130 to 1600 later today I am to be paid for charging two of my EVs. Now that is demand and supply market conditions in action ! This is what we want !

Edited 21 April21 Apr by lol-lol